What were they thinking?

[seaneduck]

So I went out to the duck pen today (2 call ducks, and 2 wood ducks) and saw what I thought was a nest in the corner. It has been consistently 0 degrees around here for weeks, and I thought surely there wouldn't be eggs (especially without someone sitting on them) and low and behold 10 TEN eggs. They were all stone cold, and at least one of them had frozen solid and cracked. My question is, if my call duck (she was the culprit come to find out) is laying now, will she lay again when the weather turns more spring-like? Or is this gonna be it for the season?
I took the eggs and threw them out, incidentally.
What do you think?

 

[JosieR]

I think they probably started laying because the days are getting longer now. My understanding is whether they lay depends on the amount of light they have (in hours) not the temp.

 

[1duckychick]

My nutty females lay all year long. The rouen won't sit a nest but I can't get the runner off hers! When I take the eggs she just starts over the next day. The funny part is, last year when I put a couple of real live day-olds out in her nest she nearly flipped her feathers! She freaked and flew behind me and ran off quacking her fool head off when the little ones went quacking after her. I mean, what did she think was gonna pop out of her eggs...cookies?!

 

[HamandLily]

Both of my girls lay all year round - egg production drops at certain times of the year though - particularly during the moult and extremely cold weather - but all year laying isn't uncommon!